Making Soap - Goat Milk Soap, Athens, GA

Today I made a batch of doublemint goat milk soap (peppermint and spearmint), one of my favorite scents (I love peppermint, spearmint, peppermint, and pretty much any kind of mint, if you can't tell).  To break up my normal routine I decided to take a few pictures and share a little about what goes on in the soap making process.  Of course, I didn't get pictures of some of the steps, but that is understandable seeing I had rubber gloves on my hands...

First, gather all ingredients and equipment.  Safety goggles and rubber gloves are very important - the danger of working with lye should never be underestimated.  I usually wear a long sleeve shirt over my normal shirt as well to protect my arms from any splashes.  Today that proved to be a good thing, not because I splashed myself, but because when I was leaning over one mold of soap to reach another, I leaned a little to far, and dragged my shirt in the still liquid soap.  Thankfully, it was only on the outside shirt and did not go through the other one to my skin.  Soap burns are irritating, and I am glad to have avoided one today. 

But back to equipment and ingredients.  A scale is a must for precision and accuracy in measuring ingredients.  Stainless steel pots?  Lye can corrode and ruin pots made from other types of metals.  And of course spoons for stirring and containers for holding different ingredients are needed.  Also necessary are the ingredients: olive oil, sodium hydroxide, peppermint and spearmint essential oils, goat milk, and coconut and palm oils (not pictured).

Next, measure all oils into one pot.  The chunky oils are the coconut oil (white) and palm oil (orange).  Put the oils on low heat on the stove to melt and warm up.  Meanwhile, measure all the other ingredients, making sure to put on rubber gloves and safety goggles before opening the bottle of sodium hydroxide.

While the oils are melting and slowly heating (with you stirring every once in a while) slowly begin adding sodium hydroxide to the goat milk.  It is necessary to start with cold milk, and to keep it under 80 degrees while adding the sodium hydroxide.  I put the pot in an ice water bath to maintain a consistent temperature.  Otherwise, the temperature would rocket sky high (well, not quite) and the batch of soap would be ruined.

By the time you finish adding the sodium hydroxide to the milk, the oils should be all melted and mixed together.  Check the temperature, and if it is between 80 and 100 degrees, slowly pour into the lye/milk mixture.  After this you have to stir, stir, stir.  Right now I use a hand blender, but other types of blenders work as well (some work faster, but I killed the motor in my other blender and have not gotten a new one yet...)  You keep mixing and blending this mixture until it traces (a small amount of soap dribbled on top leaves a pattern and then sinks below the surface).  Once it gets to that point you add the scents (peppermint and spearmint EOs in this case), and then pour into the molds.  

 Put the molds in a safe place away from drafts, children, and pets, and then clean up your mess.  That involves rinsing and washing all of the dishes (by hand), and making sure you, your gloves, and the surfaces you worked on are clean.  Now you just have to wait four to six weeks, and then your hand made soap with all natural ingredients will be ready to enjoy!